by Rachel del Guidice
Two Democratic senators—Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana—who initially voted in favor of a Republican amendment reversing President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline later reversed themselves and voted with other Democrats to kill the amendment.
Both Tester and Manchin voted late Thursday night for the amendment from Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., that would have reversed Biden’s Jan. 20 executive order ending further construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but changed their votes before dawn on Friday morning.
Daines’ amendment was attached to a COVID-19 relief bill and initially passed 52-48, but after Manchin and Tester switched sides, Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to kill the amendment on a straight party-line vote.
An angry Daines tweeted Friday morning, “Early this morning, while the American people were asleep, Senate Democrats chose to flip-flop on their support for my Keystone XL pipeline amendment, as well as @SenatorBraun’s amendment to support fracking.” Sen. Mike Braun is a GOP lawmaker from Indiana.
The canceling of the Keystone XL pipeline is projected to kill 11,000 jobs, 8,000 of them union jobs, as The Daily Signal previously reported.
Daines tweeted that Manchin and Tester “chose to stand with Green New Deal radicals over American jobs & blue-collar workers. They chose to stand against tax revenue for counties & low energy costs for families. Montanans & the American people will know where they stand. But also know this, I won’t stop fighting.”
The last-minute vote switch is especially surprising from Manchin, who had said publicly Tuesday that he disagreed with Biden’s directive.
“Well, at the bottom line, I disagree. I respectfully disagree with the president and the executive order on doing away with the Keystone pipeline,” Manchin said on Fox News.
“I’ve seen a train blow up in West Virginia carrying that crude. I’ve seen tanker cars explode going through towns. It’s much safer in that pipeline than it is coming across the road or the rail. If they think they’re going to stop that product, that’s a heavy crude we need in our refineries,” he said.
As of late Friday afternoon, neither Manchin nor Tester had explained why they changed their votes.
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Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program.
Check out Joe Manchin’s record and you will learn that he talks the talk of a Blue Dog Democrat but votes consistently with the left. He is all talk and no do. Hanging one’s hat on him to do right is a BIG mistake.
These idiot Democrats really don’t want to be reelected do they? Or maybe they know something that we all should fully appreciate by now, that elections really don’t matter anymore.
Welcome to the USSA!
Oddly enough their poll numbers are ok.
Senators are supposed to be representing the interests of their States, which is why originally they were elected by State Legislatues. I’m sure that West Virginia and Montana do not want to cancel the Keystone pipeline Instead big out-of-state money and the party leaders rule over them.
REPEAL the 17th Amendment!
i wonder who the unions supported in the election?
and also what happened to obiden saying only a tyrant governs by EOs?
hypocrite much?
sounds like little Chucky Schumer got two of his little children to change their minds!